SAN ANTONIO — Alamo Colleges Chancellor Bruce Leslie emailed employees of the five Alamo Colleges this morning notifying them that the district is backing away from two controversial efforts — one pushing the district toward electronic instructional materials that students would pay for along with tuition and fees and another placing a controversial new course, called EDUC 1300, in the core curriculum.

Faculty and students have spoken out against both concepts.

“While it troubles me to write this, I have decided that it is in the best interests of the Alamo Colleges to redirect our efforts to place the EDUC 1300 course as part of the core,” Leslie wrote in the email. “The controversy and divisiveness surrounding this issue have simply outweighed the necessity to push ahead at this time. For the same reason, we will not be linking all IM (instructional materials) purchases to the registration process in the upcoming term.”

District spokesman Leo Zuniga confirmed the authenticity of the email sent at 10:40 a.m.